Children of the New World

Death begins and ends Djebar's moving, mesmerizing account of the Algerian war of independence. Using the interaction of several characters over the course of a single day in a small mountain town, Djebar shows how the fight against French colonialism pitted woman against man and "brother against brother." "Overt violence is the only policy that pays off in this country," one character muses; another moves in and out of consciousness after 14 days of police torture. Emotional violence proves just as shocking as physical brutality, as when 29-year-old Cherifa must overcome Islamic tradition in order to protect her husband, Youssef, from their neighbor, the policeman Hakim. But as Hakim conducts his investigation into Youssef's participation in a "secret organization," he starts to question the way his job has alienated him from the Arab community and from his wife. Djebar (So Vast the Prison ) broadens the stories of "the revolution, the liberation struggle" to honor the "many drowning women whose destiny had been taken away forever" and to critique blind adherence to any ideology. The anticolonial, feminist novel, published in France in 1961 but only recently translated into English, loudly reverberates in today's politically charged social climate. (Dec.)